Picture a patch sewn onto a coat: the hole is covered, but the stitches are crooked and everyone can see it. That is the picture to hold for botch. The word points at hands-on work that had a right way to be done and was not done that way — a repair, a haircut, a shelf, a piece of wiring. It points at the cause too: the person rushed, or could not do it. And it points at what is left behind, because a botch does not disappear; it sits there, and usually someone has to do the job again. The verb is the doing (they botched the repair) and the noun is the thing left behind (the repair was a botch). Both are informal and both are blaming.
From the word’s history
The supplied Wiktionary etymology says botch comes from Middle English bocchen, to mend, though its further origin is uncertain and it is a doublet of bodge. The mending sense is worth knowing because it explains the patch in the core image: the word once named repair work, and what survives is the crooked repair.
封包裡的 Wiktionary 詞源說 botch 來自 Middle English 的 bocchen「修補」，再往前的來歷則標為不確定，並註明它和 bodge 是同源雙式詞。知道這一點有用，因為它正好解釋核心畫面裡那塊補丁：這個字本來講的是修補，留到今天的卻是「補得很難看」的那一半。因為詞源本身標了不確定，這條線索當成記憶掛鉤就好。
Wiktionary etymology supplied in this packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:832265678): Middle English bocchen 'to mend', origin uncertain; doublet of bodge.
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料10 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
botchverb詞源 1/bɒt͡ʃ/
- 1
To perform (a task) in an incompetent or unacceptable manner; to make a mess of something.
- A botched haircut seems to take forever to grow out.
- And other diuels that ſuggest by treaſons, / Do botch and bungle vp damnation, / VVith patches, colours, and vvith formes being fetcht / From gliſt'ring ſemblances of piety: […]
- 2
To do (something) without care or skill, or clumsily.
- 3
To mend or repair (something) clumsily.
botchnoun詞源 1/bɒt͡ʃ/
- 1
An action, job, or task that has been performed very badly; a ruined, defective, or clumsy piece of work.
- That I require a cleareneſſe; and with him; / To leaue no Rubs nor Botches in the Worke:
- 2
A patch put on, or a part of a garment patched or mended in a clumsy manner.
- 3
A mistake that is very stupid or embarrassing.
- 4
A messy, disorderly or confusing combination; a conglomeration; hodgepodge.
- 5
archaicOne who makes a mess of something.
- If it was the last word I ever spoke, Puddock, you're a good natured—he 's a gentleman, sir—and it was all my own fault; he warned me, he did, again' swallyin' a dhrop of it—remember what I'm saying, Doctor—'twas I that done it; I was always a botch, Puddock, an' a fool; and—and—gentlemen—good-by.
botchnoun詞源 2/bɒt͡ʃ/
- 1
obsoleteA tumour or other malignant swelling.
- Botches and blaines muſt all his fleſh imboſs,
- 2
A case or outbreak of boils or sores.
- The Lord wil smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scabbe, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not bee healed.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。